Caldris came into the gallery after the clerk had called her name twice, and did not go to her hearing.
She came instead to the front desk, where Mara stood at the plate with the three limits for each branch still wet in the record’s ink. She set her slate on the desk. She did not sit.
“The pattern,” she said. “When it’s finished. The manifold, the branch limits, the module drawings.” She looked at the plate. “Register it under the Compact.”
Mara looked at her.
“So no private consortium can seize it,” Caldris said.
The gallery was emptying. Most of the pairs had gone; the links had dropped one by one. The clerk was still at her desk at the gallery’s side, writing up the afternoon’s record. Eshel was at the back, at the small rack Sen’s crew had carried up for the session, packing the gauge reader into its case.
They both stopped.
“Why?” Mara said.
